Source: Allen J. Schaben / Getty
Lizzo really can’t seem to mind her “fat Black beautiful business” without people she never sent for coming for her just to come for her. Whether its fatphobic remarks, prudes who have their tighty-whiteys in a bunch over her twerking and wearing skimpy clothing, or complaints about her playing some dead slave owner’s flute, it seems people always have something to say about a talented, plus-size Black woman whose confidence appears to exceed their comfort.
Now, these MFers are trying to say Lizzo doesn’t make music for Black people just because she’s enough of a cross-over artist to draw a wide (and white) audience.
In fact, Lizzo told Vanity Fair in a recent interview published Tuesday, that the idea that she doesn’t do music for her own people is the insult that hurts the most.
“When Black people see a lot of white people in the audience, they think, well this isn’t for me, this is for them,” she said. “The thing is, when a Black artist reaches a certain level of popularity, it’s going to be a predominantly white crowd.”
Lizzo also cited other Black artists who are/were big enough to draw massive and, by default, “overwhelmingly white” crowds like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, and, of course, Beyoncé.
Besides the fact that Lizzo is 100 percent correct about Black artists drawing in mostly white audiences once they reach a certain level of fame, the fact is, if you’ve been to enough underground Hip-Hop shows, you know the tendency for them to be packed wall-to-wall with white boys in backpacks. That doesn’t make Hip-Hop any less of a Black art form, right? Hell, even Bob Marley used to complain about not being able to draw large Black American crowds and performing for the overwhelmingly white audiences that showed up to his concerts instead.
At the end of the day, it ain’t Lizzo’s fault if she makes music that might veer out of the “music that’s popular with the Black masses” box. The fact that she’s a Black woman making music from her Black woman experience alone makes what she does Black music when it comes down to it.
“I am not making music for white people,” she told Vanity Fair. “I am a Black woman, I am making music from my Black experience, for me to heal myself [from] the experience we call life. If I can help other people, hell yeah. Because we are the most marginalized and neglected people in this country. We need self-love and self-love anthems more than anybody.”
“So am I making music for that girl right there who looks like me, who grew up in a city where she was underappreciated and picked on and made to feel unbeautiful? Yes,” she continued. “It blows my mind when people say I’m not making music from a Black perspective—how could I not do that as a Black artist?”
Exactly.
